Summary

This study was an evaluation of the Los Angeles County Drug
Treatment Boot Camp (DTBC). This site was selected because it was one
of the earliest boot camps in the nation designed specifically for
juvenile offenders. The program enrolled only male offenders between
the ages of 16 and 18, who were either documented or alleged drug
users with sustained petitions by the juvenile courts for non-violent
and non-sex offenses. The main goal of the study was to use a
combination of official and self-report measures to assess the
effectiveness of the DTBC as a correctional model for juvenile
offenders with a focus on their substance-abusing behavior. The study
consisted of three independent data collection components: (1) a
comparison of official recidivism rates between matched boot camp
graduates and non-boot camp graduates over a five-year observation
period (Part 1, Official Records Data for Matched Samples), (2) a
cross-sectional comparison of self-reports between boot camp and
non-boot camp graduates over a 12-month observation period (Part 2,
Twelve-Month Self-Report Data), and (3) a pre- and post-test of a boot
camp cohort over a six-month observation period (Part 3, Pre- and
Post-Test Self-Report Data). Part 1 variables include camp entry and
exit dates, sustained petition for camp entry, prior arrests, age at
first arrest, most serious charge at first arrest, number of post-camp
arrests, most serious charge for post-camp arrests, and number of
probation violations post-camp. For Parts 2 and 3, the study utilized
the well-established International Self-Report Delinquency
questionnaire to assess the youths' post-camp delinquent
activities. The instrument contained measures on (1) the types of
crimes committed during a specified time frame, (2) the frequency of
these delinquent acts, (3) the onset of each admitted offense, (4) the
circumstances of the incidents, and (5) a set of sociodemographic
variables including attitudes toward school and work, living
arrangement, and circle of friends. Demographic variables include
age, ethnicity, and country of birth.

Geographic Coverage

Restrictions

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Time Period(s)

Date of Collection

Study Purpose

This study was an evaluation of the Los Angeles
County Drug Treatment Boot Camp (DTBC). This site was selected because
it was one of the earliest boot camps in the nation designed
specifically for juvenile offenders, having been in operation since
October 1990. It was also an integral part of the Los Angeles
Probation Department, designed and operated for the long
haul. Additionally, unlike the majority of boot camps in the existing
literature, the Los Angeles DTBC had a well-developed aftercare
component combined with intensive supervision, including drug
education and individual and parental counseling. A major difference
between the Los Angeles DTBC and most other boot camps in the
literature was that the DTBC was created neither to alleviate
institutional overcrowding, nor to attract state or federal program
funding. The program enrolled only male offenders between the ages of
16 and 18, who were either documented or alleged drug users with
sustained petitions by the juvenile courts for non-violent and non-sex
offenses. All potential recruits were medically cleared for work and
rigorous physical exercise. Cadets participated in a full academic
high school program, a work program, and a 15-week drug education
program provided by the Inter-Agency Drug Abuse Recovery Program
(I-ADARP). After completing the six-month program, youth were released
to intensive aftercare supervised by seven probation officers who
worked exclusively on DTBC cases. The emphasis of the aftercare phase
was on education, employment opportunities, and vocational
guidance. The main goal of this study was to use a combination of
official and self-report measures to assess the effectiveness of the
DTBC as a correctional model for juvenile offenders with a focus on
their substance abusing behavior. To this end there were four
specific objectives: (1) to examine official recidivism over a much
longer period of time than most published studies in order to increase
the overall understanding of the long-term impact of juvenile boot
camps on recidivism, (2) to examine the impact of the boot camp
program on subsequent delinquency involvement, (3) to examine the
effectiveness of boot camps in reducing participants' subsequent
involvement in drug use and sale, and (4) to examine the level of
participation of camp graduates in conventional activities and, in
particular, the role of parental involvement in fostering successful
return of participants to the community.

Study Design

This study consisted of three independent data
collection components: (1) a comparison of official recidivism rates
between matched boot camp graduates and non-boot camp graduates over a
five-year observation period, (2) a cross-sectional comparison of
self-reports between boot camp and non-boot camp graduates over a
12-month observation period, and (3) a pre- and post-test of a boot
camp cohort over a six-month observation period. For Part 1, the
researchers used the case matching technique to locate a group of
comparable subjects from four other juvenile camps who were matched
against the sampled boot camp participants on major sociodemographic
and criminal history characteristics. Access to both juvenile and
adult official records was granted through the approval of a petition
to the Los Angeles County Probation Department prior to the initiation
of the project and of a motion to the Los Angeles County Juvenile
Court. Complete records of arrests and dispositions were obtained for
the matched samples and keyed into a data file for analysis. For Part
2, telephone interviews were conducted at the Social and Behavioral
Research Institute (SBRI) at California State University-San Marcos,
which was equipped with a state-of-the-art computer-aided telephone
interviewing (CATI) laboratory capable of conducting large-scale
survey research regionally and nationally. The software of the CATI
system tracked the scheduled call-backs and monitored progress on
completing sample-related quotas. Interview questions appeared on the
computer screen and the interviewer entered the data directly into the
database. To locate potential subjects, probation records containing
subjects' home addresses and phone numbers were obtained for the pool
of eligible subjects. Eliciting cooperation from these youths for
interviews was aided by a nominal payment of $20 for each completed
interview. Additionally, subjects were assured of confidentiality of
their identity. Several techniques were used to achieve the proposed
sample size of 100 completed interviews for each group, including
directory assistance, cross-street verification, repeated calls to
unanswered calls, and reviewing hardcopy probation files to search for
additional contact information, such as addresses and phone numbers of
subjects' relatives and employers. Part 3 was designed to interview a
group of subjects as soon as they entered the boot camp to obtain
self-report data for the six months prior to their current entry into
the justice system. The same group of subjects would then be
interviewed for a second time six months after leaving the camp. The
goal was to gauge changes over time as a result of participation in
the boot camp. The first wave of interviews was conducted over a
three-month period and included a cohort of 137 fresh recruits, which
was estimated to be sufficient for 100 completed interviews at the
second wave. However, the sample attrition was far more severe than
anticipated. Researchers employed a variety of methods to try to
locate respondents after they left the camp. Because of the
difficulty in locating the subjects, the elapsed time between the camp
exit and the second interview was significantly lengthened from the
originally planned six months to anywhere between 204 days and 517
days, with an average of 351 days. The study utilized the
well-established International Self-Report Delinquency questionnaire
to assess the youths' post-camp delinquent activities. The instrument
contained measures on (1) the types of crimes committed during a
specified time frame, (2) the frequency of these delinquent acts, (3)
the onset of each admitted offense, (4) the circumstances of the
incidents, and (5) a set of sociodemographic variables including
attitudes toward school and work, living arrangements, and circle of
friends.

Sample

For Part 1, the sampling frame included youths who
completed the boot camp between April 1992 and December 1993 to
minimize possible treatment inconsistencies and programmatic/staff
adjustment during the start-up phase. A complete roster of the boot
camp gradates from this sampling period was obtained from the camp
headquarters from which 427 graduates with no prior camp experience
were randomly selected. Frequency tables were compiled for the DTBC
graduates to provide sociodemographic descriptions, which then served
as guides to stratify for selecting the comparison
graduates. Subsequently, a complete roster of the four comparison
camps was also obtained and used to select 427 youths who matched the
predetermined descriptive variables. For Part 2, a complete list of
all camp graduates who exited the boot camp program and the four
comparison camps in 1996 was obtained from the Los Angeles County
Probation Department camp headquarters. To ensure a sufficiently large
pool of eligible candidates, the sampling time frame was extended to
December of 1995 and the first three months of 1997. The original plan
was to match the two samples on the same descriptive variables.
However, the effort was aborted when the selective interview process
turned out to be prohibitively expensive and impractical. For Part 3,
the first wave of interviews was conducted over a three-month period
and included a cohort of 137 fresh recruits, which was estimated to be
sufficient for 100 completed interviews at the second wave. However,
the sample attrition was far more severe than anticipated. Due to the
difficulty of locating respondents after they left camp, the majority
of the follow-up interviews took place approximately one year after
their exit from camp and only 89 subjects were located and
interviewed.

Universe

Unit(s) of Observation

Individuals.

Data Source

Part 1 data were gathered from the administrative
records of the Lost Angeles Probation Department and the Los Angeles
County Juvenile Court. Data for Parts 2 and 3 were collected through
telephone interviews.

Data Type(s)

administrative records data, and survey data

Description of Variables

Demographic variables in Part 1 include date of
birth and ethnicity. Other Part 1 variables are camp entry and exit
dates, sustained petition for camp entry, prior arrests, age at first
arrest, most serious charge at first arrest, number of post-camp
arrests, most serious charge for post-camp arrests, and number of
probation violations post-camp. Demographic variables in Parts 2 and
3 include age, ethnicity, country of birth, and language spoken at
home. Parts 2 and 3 also contain variables related to the number of
arrests and most serious charges, similar to Part 1. Other variables
in Parts 2 and 3 include with whom the youth lived, adults'
occupational code and job group, number of siblings, who took care of
the youth, family criminal history, whether the youth attended school,
the number of times the youth had been suspended or expelled from
school, the youth's perceptions of his opportunities in life, the
youth's evaluation of himself, whether the youth had a job and type of
job, kinds of sports in which the youth participated, youth's
assessment of his relationship with his caretaker, whether the youth
ever ran away from home, whether and how often the youth participated
in particular delinquent acts such as truancy or graffiti, the youth's
alcohol and drug use and sales, weapon possession, and gang
participation, parents' reaction to youth's arrest, age at which the
youth first began dating, having sex, driving, working, drinking, and
getting into trouble with the police, youth's relationships with camp
staff, and the youth's assessment of his own neighborhood.

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